Is Raju Running the Govt. of India?

Govt's aam aadmi bill may be inflated: CAG

Who says Satyam’s fraud was a one-off case and it is not a representative of India or India Inc? Today’s headline in ToI says:

Punching a hole in the UPA government's campaign of Bharat Nirman and other flagship schemes, its official auditor, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) said in a report released on Friday that the government had been overstating the expenditure.

The news of Rs 7,800 Cr scam by Raju & Co. made such a hue and cry across media, and rightly so. But this news of over 51,000 Cr rupees was not discussed anywhere. Within 1 hr the news was buried in the archive pages of ToI website. This shows that the difference of expectation of public and media from the govt. is so low even in the election year. Even a fraud of 51,000 Cr rupees does not get enough attention.

The report further goes:

Over Rs 51,000 crore was allocated for these flagship schemes in 2007-08 which got transferred to the bank accounts of NGOs, autonomous bodies and district authorities. However, the government has told CAG that it was not aware of the actual expenditure by these organisations.

Raising an alarm, the CAG said money often remained unspent in the accounts of these implementing agencies. Kept outside government accounts, they were beyond the purview of any checks and balances of the Centre.

The report also pointed out how the Social and Infrastructure Development Fund (SIDF) — created in 2006 for funding initiatives such as the employment of physically challenged, insurance cover for rural poor, etc — was diverted to unspecified programmes like celebration of 150th year of the First War of Independence and towards grants to various cultural organizations.

The government had transferred Rs 6,500 crore in 2007 and Rs 6,000 crore in 2008 to the SIDF. An examination of Rs 3,500 crore expenditure under this account by the CAG revealed that at least Rs 1,500 crore in 2006-07 and a similar amount the following year was diverted to celebrations and giving aid to NGOs and other expenditure rather than creating infrastructure.

Pointing out how the government had been diverting funds intended to provide subsidies to the rural “aam aadmi'', the CAG report said of the Rs 20,000 crore collected under the Universal Service Obligation Fund between 2003-08 towards subsidising rural telephony, only Rs 6,000 crore was spent; the remaining amount was not there in the fund.

Surely, our government is taking lessons form corporate India.